


One Crisis At A Time

by Humanlighthouse



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: (not star trek related for once), F/M, I AM OLD, I STILL TAG SMUT AS LEMON, I know, Lemon, Lizzington - Freeform, Porn with Feelings, Sex Pollen, So there you go, Yes you read that right, also if this reads like a love letter to Red thats because it is, and confined spaces, and yes the heavy cream bit comes from tumblr, but still quite a lot of smut, but that one has sat in my spank bank for years just waiting for the right fandom, if you've read any of my other fics turn away now, seriously, sex pollen AU, smut with feelings, this isnt meant for innocent eyes, very explicit smut, very very explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:58:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanlighthouse/pseuds/Humanlighthouse
Summary: The old sex pollen AU is back baby!After a crisis at a laboratory, Elizabeth is starting to feel very, very intensely towards Red. Exotic use of coffee ingredients and unprompted confessions ensue.





	One Crisis At A Time

Summer was hot, humid, and miserable in Washington.

It was enough to make Elizabeth miss Nebraska. Some days, she still yearned for the house she grew up in, for the cool shade of its backyard, for her little room with its low ceiling and small windows where she could pretend the world was magical and kind.

She missed that innocence. Nowadays, everything she did felt calculated. More than the sweltering heat, it was this sensation that weighted on her shoulders as she stepped off the SUV.

“Earth to Keen,” called Ressler, slamming his own door shut.

“What?” she answered with a little less aplomb than she would have liked.

“I don’t know where your mind went on the way here, but now I need it to be on the bust, _partner_.”

What little annoyance was left in Elizabeth deflated. “Sorry, Don. I’m a little distracted by that horrible weather, I think.”

He smiled his boyish grin. “Yeah, that takes some getting used to.” He looked around and signaled for their team. “Now focus, okay?” His hand twisted in mid-air, launching the bust of this drug laboratory they had been tracking for the better part of a week. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Elizabeth followed him in, gun at the ready. Her bulletproof vest stuck to the open skin at the collar of her blouse, and she felt it moving stiffly with every step they took.

The inside of the building was even hotter than the street, if that was possible. Unlit, crumbling, the unassuming brick building hid at its center a state-of-the-art laboratory, with multiple airlock-insulated rooms, apparently color-coded by hazard level. At the end of the building, a red room was triple-walled and had a two-level airlock-system to break. The other two were marked yellow and green.

Guided by Red’s intel, their team had waited for the delivery boys to leave, a B-squad catching them several blocks over so as not to draw attention. Now, the laboratory was deserted except for the two men they were after. Maybe they wouldn’t have to fight this time, hoped Elizabeth. It would be a refreshing change not to end the day on a bloodbath for once.

Alas, the glass walls and airlocks made for the least discreet entry possible. As soon as Aram was done deactivating the outer defense and the main door was breached, the men retreated to the green pod and punched the alarm system, effectively shutting themselves in and the team out.

The older of the two brandished a pad and smiled victoriously. “These pods can withstand anything, officer, don’t bother trying to break them in.”

Ressler narrowed his eyes at them and tightened his grip on the handle of his gun, marching to the glass wall. “Then maybe we’ll have to starve you out like rats in your trap,” he menaced.

“We have enough here to withstand a siege,” replied the man calmly, as his companion revealed hidden storage and water tanks. “This room was designed as a bunker in case our safeties failed. You wouldn’t like our safeties to fail, would you?” continued the man in a sugary tone, toying with the side of his pad. “You wouldn’t want the red room to open and, say, that little canister laying on the desk over there to fall while you were around, right?”

“What’s in the canister?” asked Ressler.

“That, officer, is for us to know and you to worry about.”

“Aram?” called Ressler in his earpiece.

“I have a possible list of substances tied to this laboratory,” came the reply in everyone’s ears, “but I have no way of identifying which on is in the canister, which is their point, I guess…”

Ressler groaned.

“If you are quite done”, interrupted the man. “Now, I know who sent you, and I know why.”

“We come on behalf of the United States government, to place you and your accomplices under arrest,” called a member of their team.

The man smiled politely. “If that’s what you call him these days…”

“What do you want?” interjected Elizabeth. Continuing to pretend they weren’t here on Red’s orders would only amuse the perps and infuriate Ressler further.

“We want you, _Miss Keen_ , and the good officer to get into the yellow pod,” said the man with a knowing smile. A tap of his finger on the pad and the airlock to the yellow room to slide open with a hush.

“Why?”

“So your colleagues,” he gestured to the A-squad assembled around them, heavy guns pointing at the man’s face through the glass, “have a good reason to leave us be while we attend to some business with our mutual friend.”

Elizabeth cursed silently. Ressler did too, less silently. She lowered her gun and dug through her pockets to find her phone. Her fingers were slippery with sweat as she punched number 7 on the keyboard. Nick’s Pizza rang once, before Red’s mellifluous tone came through the speaker.

“Yes, dear?”

“You better come in.”

“What delightful words, but I’m sure I don’t know wh-”

“Don’t play dumb, Red, I saw Dembe park the car two blocks over before we entered.”

“Come to think of it, I might be in the neighborhood. Perhaps it is time I pay my chemist friends a visit.”

His voice echoed oddly on the line, before Elizabeth turned to find Raymond Reddington standing behind her, impeccable in a three-piece suit. Despite the heat and the situation, there was not a bead of sweat on his forehead.

“Marco!” he called to the man in the pod with a smile that could sell sand in the desert, making his way through the swat team to the green room. “And is that little Anthony I see? Oh, that’s just beautiful, a family business. You have a fantastic installation here! Would that be Ruby’s work? I knew she was good with glass, but this is beyond her usual fare,” he continued, undisturbed by the guns pointed in his direction, running an appreciative finger on the glass wall. “You should meet her, Lizzie, that woman is a veritable magician. She once made me a vase in the shape of a wave, why, you could almost feel the-

The man produced a small USB key from his lab coat pocket. “Is that what you pretend not to be looking for?”

All of Red’s movements stopped, face frozen in intense focus for a second before his mask slid smoothly back in the form of a warm smile. “I could be looking for something very similar to this, yes.”

“What’s in this?” asked Elizabeth.

“I expect you’ll want something in return. Whether or not I am looking for it actively depends entirely on your price.”

“Get these two in the yellow pod and then we’ll talk,” the man repeated with a nod toward the room.

“Absolutely not,” answered both Red and Ressler at once.

Elizabeth thought of his insistence for a second and turned to her partner. She drew Ressler aside and spoke to him in hushed tones. “They think with the proper protection, they can walk unharmed anywhere. That’s what their lab is built on. We are that protection for them. If they have both of us, neither Red nor the FBI can do anything against them. I don’t think they want to harm us, I think they just want another safety.”

“That doesn’t make it okay. I’m sure Reddington has another ace up his sleeve he can throw at them to lure them out without us _getting into a lab full of viruses_!”

“We do not study _viruses_ , officer,” called the younger man, evidently offended by the suggestion, “We study toxins, mostly plant-based.”

“Very subtle, Ress,” muttered Elizabeth.

“Oh yes, poison is much better than a virus, sorry,” deadpanned Ressler.

“The yellow room is the non-lethal room,” said the older man. “No definitive harm will come to you in it, merely… inconvenience.”

“I refuse,” intervened Red. “I will find another way.” With that, he turned on his heel, waving goodbye over his shoulder.

The man pressed another button on his pad, and the first airlock to the red room popped open. The silence in the building was pregnant with fear. Almost every weapon on their team dropped an inch lower, except for Ressler’s gun, held high in white-knuckled menace.

“Close it now,” he ordered, face pressed close to the man’s, his breath fogging the glass wall.

“Or what?” smiled the man. He stared down Ressler without moving back. The younger man behind him let out a giggle. The man’s smile vanished. In his eyes were nothing but cold determination. “Get. In. The pod,” he articulated.

Elizabeth grabbed her partner’s arm. “Let’s get this over with.”

“No,” ordered Red, grabbing her own shoulder.

She turned to him. “He won’t hurt us unless you screw this up, so don’t. For once, just do what he asks.”

“Elizabeth,” called Red warningly.

She dislodged his hand with a jerk of her shoulder.

“It’s us two or the entire city. I don’t care what he wants, give it to him and get us out.”

She followed Ressler into the airlock and watched as it slid shut behind them, a brush of cool air hitting her forehead. The other door opened with the same hush, and she walked into the yellow room.

It was messy and tidy at once like only a workspace can be, piles of notes only on the right side of the desk, clean tubes and microscopes on the right. On both sides of the desk, large fridges housed specimens, and above it, several shelves held terrariums where various species of what she thought were mushrooms grew.

Almost no sound reached them from outside through the double walls. They had had to leave their vests, guns, phones and earpieces outside - she could only watch as their team retreated and Red himself walked into the green room. She pressed her hand to the glass wall. Behind her Ressler was already rummaging through the desk drawers in search of incriminating evidence.

For a second, Elizabeth rested her head against the glass wall. The air inside the pod was stagnant and slightly pressurized, like the air inside a plane. She felt sticky with perspiration and her back ached with fatigue. She wasn’t sleeping well these days, even with the aircon on. The rustle of papers, Ress’ voice, the silence, the air pressure, the heat, all of these made her drowsy. She took the only desk chair, moving it out of the way of Ressler’s investigation, and sat heavily.

“You okay?” called Ressler.

“Yeah, just need a second.” She waved him off and closed her eyes.

She knew how this day would play out. Red would negotiate with these two criminals like a carpet seller in a bazaar, end up selling some secret to buy another. Eventually, she and Ressler would be let out, CSI would come in, and she would have to pull yet another all-nighter filing evidence against people that had mysteriously disappeared along with Red by the time they were out of the pod. It was the crisis of the day, but there would be a new one tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, all of them managed but mostly unpunished.

A small part of her was disappointed to find this more boring than frustrating. When had she given up on her job? When had she stopped wanting to make a difference?

Maybe she should be searching too. The problem was, she knew the key to their freedom was not to be found in the pod. It was in the one next to it, in the form of a sharply-dressed man who could charm the claws off a tiger.

He was the reason she had given up, she suddenly realized. Now that she had seen firsthand the kind of life Red lived, she couldn’t believe that arresting criminals was enough. There was always a more powerful politician, a dirtier crook, someone that could put enough pressure on someone else and undo all of their work. You had to cut it at the root to make a real difference. You had to play the game on the same level these people played.

You had to play it like Red.

She looked at him through the glass. She knew his facial expressions by heart now. The frown of focus. The brow tightening of impatience. The pursed lips of doubt. The raised eyebrow of interest.

Idly, she wondered what they were discussing, what kind of lives were in the balance this time. Beside hers and Ressler’s, of course.

“Ahah!” exclaimed Ressler triumphantly behind her.

She turned around in the seat. “Hm?”

“Look at that.” He produced a thick journal from the drawer he had been lock-picking. It was filled with detailed drawings of the plants and notes written in small, nervous print. Elizabeth recognized some of the plants that grew in the terrariums. Some pages had highlighter stripes on top, color-coded too, but not in a code she could easily decipher. They turned the pages together, trying to make sense of the men’s study.

A loud, familiar noise outside broke them out of their concentration. The glass wall of the green pod next to them had turned opaque with blood. They dropped the journal and ran to the wall of their own pod.

Elizabeth heard Red’s voice threatening the remaining man, and a flash of relief ran through her. Then the older man’s face thumped suddenly against the glass, smearing the blood around, his collar held tight behind him by what could only be Red’s fingers. The face disappeared again, and through the red haze, Elizabeth saw the man frantically tap on the pad as he was dragged out of the pod, his front covered with blood.

They stopped in front of the yellow pad, and the airlock opened on Liz and Ressler’s side first. Ressler was closer. He picked the journal from the floor and stepped through the airlock first, waiting for Liz on the threshold. She rose from the chair and was about to join him when she saw the man make a move for Red’s gun.

She screamed and scrambled to her feet, chair crashing loudly behind her. The man clocked Red on the jaw before he had time to react. Ressler jumped to the door of the airlock, pounding against glass that refused to budge. Elizabeth watched in horror as the two men outside wrestled, before an alarm rang loud and clear in the confined space. The door to the airlock began to close again and she barely had time to jump back before it slid shut. Ressler turned toward her, trapped between the two doors.

Elizabeth felt panic rise inside of her. The alarm was blaring its shrill cry, the lights had dimmed to a deep red and she stumbled upon the overturned chair.

Outside, behind Ressler, Red had bested the man and was punching him rhythmically.

“Open that door!” she could hear him yell.

“I CAN’T,” cried the man in return.

“DO IT!” bellowed Ressler over the alarm.

Liz’s hands flew to her ears instinctively to protect herself from the onslaught of noise. It was chaos around her. The red light pulsated ominously. The laboratory was a mess. Red was punching the man, Ress was punching the glass.

“STOP IT,” she cried.

Primal brain taking over, she looked around for help, for cover, for anything that could fight this panic. She didn’t remember when, but the chair had crashed into one of the fridges, shattering the glass door and spilling the specimens. The fridge light had turned red.

This was where the alarm came from, she realized. It was an automatic safety, color-coded to match the rest of the building. This obsession painted an interesting picture of the man who had designed the place. She rose to her feet and called to Red through the walls. As she spoke, a small Roomba-like robot came out from under the desk and made a beeline for the mess.

“It’s automatic!” she yelled.

That seemed to stop his punches for a while, though his fist stayed raised in threat.

“What?” asked Ressler.

“It’s an automatic safety. The fridge door breaking triggered it, he can’t unlock it by force.”

The man, bloody-faced and drooping forward, nodded weakly. Red’s hand tightened on his lab coat, holding him up. “How do we deactivate it?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

“You can’t.”

In one swift move, Red removed the gun from his belt and pressed it against the man’s throat. “You’re gonna have to do better than this my friend.”

“You can’t!” protested the man again. “The cleansing cycle has to run its course.”

“What was in the fridge?”

“I am… not sure. The yellow pod was Anthony’s. He handled the non-lethal toxins. This could be anything. He had a- a diary of sorts, where he writes down everything.”

Ressler raised the journal. “This one, you mean?”

“Yes,” nodded the man.

“Everything is in there?”

“My notes are on the pad, but everything about the yellow pod should be in that-”

“That will be all then,” said Red, pushing the man aside and pulling the trigger. Blood flash to his right. The man fell forward, face ruined. Red stepped over him and dug through his pockets, retrieving the USB key. He grabbed the pad from where it had fallen and poked a finger on it. For someone who professed to be bad with technology, the software took him very little time to master, and in a matter of minutes, the airlock opened.

Red caught Ressler as soon as he walked out, took the journal from him and pushed a burner phone in his hands instead. “Call the CDC before you call Cooper.”

He stepped into the airlock, coming face to face with Elizabeth. There was not an inch between them on either side of the glass. “I’ll get you out soon, I promise. Tell me what tubes were broken.”

Elizabeth turned around and looked through the glass debris, pushing the robot aside before it could absorb the bigger pieces.

“A couple fell, but it’s hard to tell how many broke. I think just the one. It’s uh… Two pink stripes, one blue- one light blue, one dark blue,” she read from the paper label still stuck to the glass piece.

Red turned some pages. “That boy’s handwriting is disastrous. Oh. Apparently, he has tested this one on himself-”

“That’s reassuring, since he was alive an hour ago.”

Red chuckled lightly. “Indeed. He wrote that the effects peak two hours after absorption and can last from ten to twelve hours.”

“What effects?”

“Frustratingly, it doesn’t say. I assume since he tested it on himself, he didn’t need notes to remember.”

“Too bad you shot him,” replied Elizabeth in a tone heavy with reproach.

“How do you feel?” he asked in lieu of an answer, the evident worry on his face disarming Liz’s anger.

She pondered his question for a second. Besides the usual fatigue, Liz felt sweaty and heavy-limbed. Her lower back ached. She felt restless and twitchy, but that was probably just stress. “I’m fine,” she finally answered.

“According to the pad, the cycle is 45% complete. Why don’t you sit down?” he offered, kneeling on his side of the glass.

 _Might as well_ , thought Liz, mirroring his actions.

“I am sorry, Lizzie,” said Red after a moment. “I should have…” he shook his head and trailed off.

“There was nothing else you could have done.”

“I could have shot them sooner.”

“I really hate that I’m agreeing with you right now,” she laughed.

Behind her, the robot sucked the last of the glass pieces with a crunching noise. Red raised the pad, which read 60% now.

“This will soon be over.”

“Somehow, I don’t think it’s true, but I appreciate the effort.”

Red laughed quietly and pressed his fingers to the glass, his face open and soft. Liz look into his eyes and pressed her fingers against his on the other side, feeling her heart skip a beat.

Her back ached more and more, and she moved to sit against the glass. It felt cool against the heated skin of her arm. She rested her head on the door.

“Lizzie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am. But I feel kinda weird.”

“It’s at 80% now, sweetheart. You’ll be out soon. Just hold on.” He pressed his entire hand against the glass.

Liz half-turned at the noise behind him, but Red didn’t even blink, his gaze entirely focused on her with that odd expression he had sometimes when he looked at her. Ressler entered the building with an army of people in hazmat suits.

“The building has been sealed,” she heard one of them yell.

“90%,” said Red softly.

Elizabeth could feel her attention wavering. She saw shapes busy themselves beyond the glass pod, blobs of color going this way and that. Her only anchor were Red’s eyes, who never once left her face. She knew her own were glassy and unfocused, and her lower belly ached too now. It reminded her of the week before her period. She felt drowsy again and closed her eyes.

She opened them again with a start when the pod door slid open. Red caught her in his arms when she fell forward.

“I’m here, it’s okay,” he murmured against her hair.

He helped her to her feet but in a matter of seconds, she was taken away by two women in hazmat suits. They brought her to one of the tents and sat her on an examination table, running a battery of tests on her that Liz was barely aware of, only remembering the prick of a needle at her elbow, the tightness of the blood pressure measurer on her upper arm, the odd cold weight of the thermometer on her tongue.

“What happened to me?” she asked one of the women.

“We don’t know yet, but we’ve seized the remaining specimens and we’ve taken several blood samples, we should know soon.”

“Where’s…” she started, head groggy. “Where’s everyone?”

 _Where is he_ , she wanted to ask.

“The two bodies have been carried out, and the men who were with you are in quarantine in a separate tent until we can rule out a secondary contamination. Since you were directly inoculated, you’ve been isolated with us. Everyone else is outside the perimeter.”

Elizabeth looked around for the first time since she had entered the tent, if it could be called that. It had its own airlock in the entrance and a sturdy door with a small window, barely more than a peephole. There was no furniture except for the table she sat on. The instruments and samples were stored in airtight, bright yellow containers that reminded Liz of the pod. In fact, the yellow hazmat suits and the tent were yet another uncomfortable reminder of the experience. It felt like one of those dreams she had when she was younger, a maze of symbols that just wouldn’t let her escape.

Panic rose inside of her once again. She rocked slightly on the table, feeling as if her very bones were itching. She was too aware of her own body once again. Her back ached painfully. When she tried to cross her arms reassuringly over herself, they pressed against her tender breasts and she let out an involuntary cry.

“What’s wrong?” asked the other woman when she noticed the state Liz was in.

“I don’t know. I don’t feel so good,” answered Liz.

“Can you describe your symptoms?”

“I think I’m having a panic attack. I feel…” She flailed around a little. “It’s hard to breathe, and uh, I… I don’t know, my skin feels _wrong_.”

The woman took her blood pressure again.

“We can’t give you anything to help in case it interacts badly with the toxin you’ve inhaled. Just try to breath slowly.”

“You’ve never had a panic attack, have you,” coughed Liz sarcastically, bending over. Her lower belly hurt, so she did her best to stand back up. She didn’t want to lie down on the cold table. She was still too hot, but the cold was repulsive to her sweaty skin. She rocked back and forth on the table.

“I don’t feel so good,” she repeated.

“I know, but just try to calm down-”

“Lizzie!” called a voice from the airlock.

She raised her head and met Red’s eye through the window. A warm feeling spread in her chest and she breathed a little easier. She watched him argued with another hazmat-suited figure outside before the figure retreated and he forced his way in.

“Sir, you’re not supposed to be here-”

“As I explained to your colleague,” he interrupted, “I may have already been contaminated when the room opened, and I would gladly risk it again. Lizzie, how are you?”

His hand reached out to her and Liz grabbed it before she could give it a second thought. She drew him to her and buried her face in his chest. His arms came around her and for the first time in what felt like terrible, terrible hours, she breathed free. She felt him stroke her hair gently and rested her own arms against his waist.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m here.”

Liz heard him discuss her condition with the women over her head, the sounds deafened by the fabric of his suit, but she barely listened. They had made no progress. It had only been an hour since she had broken the tube and inhaled the toxin – or already an hour, depending on which side of the countdown you stood. She briefly tried to think about what effects the young man could have meant, but soon gave up and rubbed her nose over the fine threads of Red’s jacket.

She couldn’t honestly say she was fine, but she didn’t feel as bad since he had entered the room. Red always knew what to do, she thought. There was probably a whole army of biologists commanded by Mr. Kaplan outside the tent. The idea made her smile and she pressed her cheek against the soft fabric.

Drunk. She felt drunk. That was it. It reminded her of Friday nights in college. She saw herself slide her hands inside of Red’s jacket, bringing him closer in the open V of her legs, without really noticing what she was doing. She acted on instinct, following the urges of her body.

Her thigh muscles flexed on either side of his legs. His hand stilled on her hair. His other hand pushed her back a little, just enough to look at her face.

“How do you feel, Lizzie?” he asked.

“Her blood pressure is still pretty high, and the ECG rhythm is high but steady,” declared one of the women, the one that had told her to calm down.

“Tell her to go away,” mumbled Liz, burying her head in Red’s neck again. His skin was warm and soft, slightly prickly where he shaved, and smelled like soap and perfume. Liz bit her lip as the pain in her abdomen increased, muffling a groan against his skin. Red’s fingers clenched in her hair.

“Could you give us a minute?” he politely asked. The women refused at first, but after some reassurance that they would be called back if anything about Liz’s condition changed, they agreed and took the samples to the portable lab outside the tent.

Once they were alone, Red backed away again, to Liz’s protestation. She grabbed a fistful of fabric from his vest and shirt and tried to pull him back, already missing the warmth and solidity of his body against hers.

He cupped her cheek gently. “Lizzie, are you-”

Liz cut him off by pressing her lips against his. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to do. She had wanted to for a long time, anyway, she thought briefly. His mouth was as soft and pliant as she had expected, but not very reactive. Her fingers tightened around his lapel and she drew him to her, licking at the seam of his mouth until her gave in and her tongue met his. She gasped in delight and pressed forward, sitting on the very edge of the table. She brought her other arm up around his shoulders to bring him closer still, she wanted him close, even closer than this, she felt like she could climb into him and-

Red broke the kiss, breathless and panting. His expression was oddly vulnerable, and try as she might, Liz couldn’t match it to any she had filed in her Red Repertoire. He looked young and scared, the last two things she would have associated him with.

“What was that?” he asked.

Liz bit her lip. She had no words to answer, so she pulled on his shirt again. He came slowly, almost reluctantly, settling between her thighs again. Before she could rise to kiss him, he had brought both hands to the sides of her face and kiss her himself, quick and passionate. This was an offensive kiss. He had felt surprised and thrown off-kilter, and he wanted to retake the upper-hand, she thought, psychologist brain commenting as it always did in the background of her mind.

She gladly let him reassure himself, but caught him before he could step back, winding her legs around him. She had meant to prolong the kiss, but the movement brought their hips flush together and she moaned before she could stop herself.

“Red,” she breathed, resting her face on his chest. A flash of desire ran down her spine and sparkled in her toes.

He was just affected by this as she was. She could feel him growing hard against her as proof, and under her cheek, his heart was running a mile a minute.

Suddenly, he stepped back, and her legs fell back against the side of the table.

“What-”

“The effects.” He spoke coldly, stone-faced and serious. “Now we know why he didn’t write them down.”

“What are you talking about,” asked Liz in a petulant tone, hands reaching toward him. Red stepped back some more, until he was out of her reach.

“What you feel is merely the effect of the toxin, like some amped-up pheromone. It will pass.”

“It’s not.”

“Look at you, Lizzie, this isn’t what you want,” he said with a small, sad smile. Liz knew this one. It was Nostalgic Longing #3. She wanted to kiss it off his face. She didn’t want him to be sad. Red wasn’t supposed to be sad.

“Red,” she whined, drawing out the syllable, “come back.”

“No, sweetheart. I won’t let you do something you’ll regret tomorrow.”

“I won’t regret it,” she said with force, standing from the table. “It’s _you_.”

She walked to him. He didn’t step back and looked dumbfounded at her response. Seizing the opportunity, Liz grabbed his tie and kissed him.

His resolved seemed to waver for a moment. His hands came to rest on her waist, and he welcomed her tongue with a caress of his own. Liz moaned again, and the vibration of it echoed in the kiss. This time, when it broke, they were both breathless, and stood for a while with their foreheads pressed together in the middle of the empty, sterile room.

Liz felt desire course through her veins, the hungry heat of it pooling low in her abdomen. She rocked her hips weakly against him, hands shaking on his chest.

“I need you,” she pleaded.

Red choked out her name but didn’t move. His face, when she looked up, was tortured in a heavy frown, lips red and swollen but tightly pursed. She pushed her face into his neck, kissing his skin softly.

“Please.”

This was all she had to say to sway him. He let out a trembling breath and nudge her face toward his own, kissing her again and again until Liz lost all sense of time and space. She held on to him, to the safe embrace of his arms around her and to the strong shape of his chest, losing all other senses but that of touch. He was all she could feel, the warmth of him, the softness of him, the gentle wetness of his mouth against hers.

Her hands clawed at his shoulders, always wanting more. She brought her body against his once again, feeling need burning low in her, never assuaged.

“Please,” she asked again, “please Red, I need- I need-”

“I know, sweetheart, I know”, he replied in this voice that was only for her, the one she had come to know meant safety and danger all at once.

Not satisfied with this answer, she took one of his hands off her waist and pressed it to her breasts. “Touch me,” she begged.

She saw him reel at her words.

“I can’t,” he argued.

“I want you to,” she countered.

“It’s not-”

She intertwined her fingers his and squeezed her tender breast. Her entire body tensed at the sensation, sparks flying through her mind. The fire in her belly raged anew. Slowly, she dragged their joined hands lower, over her stomach and under the waistband of her jeans. When he realized what she was doing, Red tried to stop her weakly, but choked on his tongue when she pressed his palm over her panties. Even over his hand she could feel the wetness that had pooled there.

The pressure of his hand over her aching cunt was the sweetest relief she was ever felt. She moaned loudly against his neck and he silenced her with a kiss that instantly deepened. Liz reached back toward the table for support as Red rubbed his slow waves against her that mirrored the dance of his tongue in her mouth. She whimpered softly with each exhale, knees going weak, and within seconds she was shaking against him, riding the edge of orgasm.

Red broke away from her then and helped her sit on the table. He made sure she was sitting safely, before turning toward the door. When she realized what he was doing, Liz cried out.

“No, stay!”

It was a childish, instinctive cry, coming from deep in her bones. She needed him, and she needed him with her, right now.

“I’ll only be a second,” he assured, his usual politeness frayed at the edges by the crazed heat she could hear in his voice.

She watched him take off his jacket and drape it over the peephole.

 _Oh,_ she thought dumbly.

His face, when he turned back, show no hesitation, only naked desire. She swallowed with some difficulty. He came up to the table, took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly.

“Turn around,” he told her, voice rugged. She raised her legs and twisted around the table, until she faced the other wall of the tent. He grabbed her hips and drew her back into his embrace, her back against his chest. He kissed her naked shoulder softly. Liz rested her head against him and sighed. He seemed to understand her without words, like he often did, and slid one hand under her blouse, the other under her jeans.

This time, his fingers caressed her slowly over the drenched fabric, running along her slit and catching on her clit with every upward stroke. Her hips rose from table of their own volition, rocking up to meet his hand.

Liz was glad for his other hand that was holding her steady, splayed wide over her abdomen, right under her breasts, especially when she felt her panties being pushed aside. The rough skin of his fingers met the swollen lips of her labia with an electric shock, and her hips bucked wildly.

“Red!” she choked.

He kissed her neck in response, two fingers penetrating her gently while his thumb ran steady circles around her clit. Liz moaned long and hard as she came, wetness spilling over his hand.

Her mind went blank. She reached behind her, twisting her neck to kiss him, to hold onto him.

His fingers had stilled but her hips continued to rock against the table. Her thighs were still trembling with the last waves of her orgasm when the fire roared again in her loins.

She pressed on his hand through her jeans.

“More,” she demanded, “I need more – please, Red-”

He cut her off with another kiss, fingers already working their magic on her again. She closed her eyes and let herself feel, the hunger overtaking every inch of her body. Her hands were grasping at his shoulders over her own, her feet kicked in mid-air, all she could think of was him, _him_ , as he touched her.

She came again, and again, and a third time, each time a little less coherent, a little more gone. Her universe had narrowed down to a point of light between her legs and the warm darkness of him behind her, embracing the light, caressing the light, stroking it into bursting flames.

When she opened her eyes, Liz realized she had fallen asleep for a moment – or something like sleep, outside of normal time. Only Red’s arms had kept her from falling off the table.

She turned to face him. 

He looked as exhausted as she felt. She raised a hand to his cheek and cupped it, bringing her lips to his in a gentle kiss.

“It’s been about two hours,” he murmured against her lips. “The worst of it should be over.”

Liz hummed non-committedly, feeling the heat of desire like burning coals in her lower back, merely dormant but not dead. Not yet.

She kissed him again, softly, careful not to wake the fire. He felt so familiar already, she marvelled. With her fingers, she traced the lines of his face as she explored his mouth. It was his turn to moan when she kissed his jaw. Experimentally, she ran her tongue over the artery in his neck, and he grabbed onto her thigh then, nails digging in her jeans when she bit him softly.

“If you’re trying to kill me, vampirism might be the way to go,” he joked lamely.

She stroked her fingers through his short hair while she sucked at the place she had bitten, and all jokes left him.

He gasped.

“Lizzie.”

Voices in the airlock alerted them to the world outside and Red jumped away. He quickly fixed his shirt and vest while Liz stepped off the table, adjusting her jeans. Red caught his jacket before it fell off the opening door. The women no longer wore the suits.

“All the tests for man to man transmission came back negative,” she announced. “We have no idea yet how long the toxin will remain in your system, but it doesn’t appear to have affected your vital organs in any damaging way. Are you feeling alright?”

Liz nodded in what she hoped was a convincing way.

“Any pain?”

She shook her head.

“Great. You will have to remain under supervision for the next 24 to 48 hours, however, so if you’ll accompany me, there is an ambulance waiting outside to take you-”

“I have a trained medical team waiting for her,” cut in Red. “Thank you very much for your help, doctor.”

He grabbed Liz’s hand and all but ran with her outside the tent. They evaded Ressler and any question he might have had, assuring passing members of the team that Elizabeth was fine but on her way to a medical facility, so if they would please let them through, that would be great, thank you, goodbye, yes, you’ll be informed of any change, bye now.

Before Liz could register what was happening, they sat on the back seat of the Mercedes.

“Where to?” asked Dembe from the driver seat.

Red replied with an address that Liz needed a second to recognize as her own. In her defense, she had moved in not two weeks ago and her mind was distracted by the restlessness of her body.

She was pressed against Red’s side, but it wasn’t enough. She threw a leg over his and half-climbed into his lap, hands burrowing in his jacket.

“Red, please,” she whimpered against his neck, feeling heat rise again in her blood.

“Patience, sweetheart,” he whispered as he kissed her forehead. “One crisis at a time.” He drew her into his arms and held her during the short ride to her apartment.

As soon as Dembe had pulled up the curb he flung open the door and carried her out.

“Do I need to call Mr. Kaplan?” she heard him ask through the window.

“I can handle this. Don’t come until I call you,” replied Red, already halfway through the entrance hall.

He let her down when they reached the elevator, if only so one of them could press the correct button, but as soon as the doors opened to her floor, their hands were on each other once again.

She fumbled with the keys that were thankfully still in her pocket. The door slammed shut behind them and she pressed him against it, tearing at his tie, at the buttons on his vest, before he stopped her impatient hands. He undid both himself while Liz took off her blouse and opened the fly of her jeans. She wouldn’t let him finish opening his shirt himself, it seemed. She made slow work of the buttons while she backed into the apartment and he followed her, lovestruck and dizzy with desire.

Their chests met at last, skin against heated skin, and it was Red that pressed her against the kitchen wall this time. He undid the clasp of her bra with the ease of experience and brought his mouth to her breasts. Liz dug her nails in his scalp when he bit gently on a nipple, before laving at it with his tongue. The sensations overrode any other thought in her brain. She pawed at his back demandingly.

Red straightened up and met her eyes with his. He stood to his full height, eyes boring into hers, not an inch from her mouth and did – nothing. For an impossibly long moment, he stood there, watching her, breathing the same air.

Liz broke down first, as she always did. She closed the space between them and captured his mouth in a fervent kiss.

She backed them into the kitchen, her countertop the closest flat surface they could reach.

She needed him, and she needed him _now_.

He stopped her before she could hop on it. Looping his fingers through her belt buckles, he pulled the jeans off her legs. She sat on the cold marble as he slipped them off her ankles.

He made quite the spectacle, kneeling at her feet in the small kitchen, his skin flushed and his pupils blown wide.

She ran a careful toe against his cheek and shuddered when he caught her foot and kissed the inside of her ankle. He seemed to like that response and trailed kisses up her entire leg, a small peck on the thick of her shin, a wet, open-mouth smooch at the bend of her knee, soft, almost imperceptible brushes of his lips along her inner thigh.

Liz swayed. Red motioned her forward and she obeyed instinctively, her legs falling open. Cooler air hit her swollen lips and she recoiled but his hands grabbed her hips and drew her to the edge of the counter.

Red’s tongue reached out and tasted her tentatively. She let out a resounding moan, slapping a hand over her mouth to stop her cries. He licked one thick line up her cunt and she trembled. She had never felt such want. With one hand, she pushed his face between her legs. The message was clear and Red received it enthusiastically, sucking and kissing and laving at her in turns.

Liz stayed on the edge for a long time, but this wasn’t enough to send her over, and after a moment, the overstimulation on her already sensitized cunt became too much. She ached for him, but the slightest brush of stubble against her skin burned painfully.

When he sucked her clit again, she let out a moan that was more pain than pleasure.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, raising from the floor instantly.

“It burns,” she lamented.

He stroked her cheek softly. “Maybe we should stop then.”

“No!” she cried out. Her inner muscles tightened as she prepared to jump after him, and she lowered her head with a whimper. “No. I want you, even if it hurts,” she stated, grabbing his shirt tail.

He looked her over and she opened her naked body to his scrutiny. If it made him stay and scratch that itch of hers, she would have done anything.

Very slowly, he ran his index finger over her puffy red lips and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. He hummed pensively, before turning away.

On instinct, Liz tightened her hold on his shirt. “Stay,” she begged.

He turned back and kiss her lips briefly. “Give me one second, sweetheart.”

She let go of his shirt and watched him turn to her fridge, rummaging through its meager contents. With a triumphant noise, he took out an open carton of heavy cream Liz had used in her coffee yesterday.

“What are you doing?” she asked, watching in puzzlement as he poured a thick blob of it on his fingers.

“I won’t bore you with the details,” he said, coating each finger, “but a chef friend of mine once told me of a nasty adventure one of his sous-chefs had. The poor girl had been cutting a species of pepper called Naga chili, a rather fiery variety I might assume, for the evening prep, and hadn’t washed her hands thoroughly enough before indulging in a little self-love in the backroom. He found her in tears and offered to remedy her trouble with heavy cream. They have been married for nineteen years,” he added with a grin, bringing his hand to Liz’s cunt.

The cold cream was a shock to her skin but Red’s palm pressed on. His fingers wormed their way between her folds, then inside of her. He pumped them a couple of times and ran his thumb in a gentle circle over her clit.

Liz’s felt suddenly heavy, all tension leaving her body. She fell forward and rested her forehead against Red’s shoulder as he continued to massage the heavy cream into her. There was no pain anymore, only the pure bliss of sensation. Her mouth opened and she mouthed words of pleasure but no sound came out.

Her orgasm took over slowly, building in heavy walls in her lower abdomen before crashing over her like a tsunami that she felt down to her toes and up the tips of her fingers. Her entire body buzzed with sweet, sweet relief, and she closed her eyes. Red held her against him, her naked limbs wrapped around his still-clothed body.

Liz drowsed against his shoulder for what felt like hours but were merely minutes. When she came to, he pushed his hands under her thighs, tipped her weight forward onto him, and carried her to the bedroom.

Idly, Liz wondered how he knew where her bedroom was. Because he’s Raymond Reddington, _obviously_ , responded a deeper part of her brain that had yet to find his knowledge at fault.

He laid her on the bed carefully. One thing he hadn’t planned for was Liz’s foot hooking behind his knee and tripping him into falling forward between her open legs, pressing their pelvises together. Red groaned as he fell. Liz wound her legs around him again, grabbing his shirt to kiss him.

He stopped her. Liz ground her hips against his, but he steadied her with a firm hand.

“No, Liz. Not when you’re in this state.”

She groaned in annoyance. “I thought we were over this.”

“It’s different.”

“Tell me how, exactly, then.”

“It’s…” His face was serious again and Liz wanted to punch him before he spoke, voice earnest. “I can’t make love to you when you’re under influence.”

“Well, _again_ , tell me exactly what you’ve been doing since this afternoon, then.”

She knew her accusatory tone wasn’t helping the mood, but she had been hard-wired to bicker with this man since the very first day they had met and that sort of habit was hard to break.

“It’s not the same as touching you, it-”

A light clicked on inside of Liz’s mind, and her thoughts cleared suddenly.

“It involves you, this time,” she interrupted, rising to a seated position. “It’s different because _you_ would have to be vulnerable too. This was never about me, was it? It’s about _you_ not wanting to regret things tomorrow.”

He had the good sense to look sheepish. “I don’t want to let myself take advantage of the situation,” he admitted in a low voice.

“Even if I’m offering?”

“Especially if you’re ‘offering’, as you put it,” he retorted. “Lizzie, I…”

“What?”

“I- I have…”

“What?” pressed Liz. She had never seen Red at a loss for words before.

He took her hand from where it rested on the comforter and brought it to his lips. He didn’t kiss it, merely held it there as if to reassure himself somehow.

“I have wanted you for so long, I still can’t believe this isn’t an extremely elaborated hallucination,” he finally said.

“But I want you too!”

“Do you really or is it the toxin speaking?” he asked, in what was meant to be a firm voice but betrayed his uncertainty and fear. He hadn’t let go of her fingers.

Liz rose to her knees in front of him and brought her free hand to his face. “I know I do because I remember wanting you before.”

In that moment he looked young again. Liz realized it was hope that made his eyes glow this way. “Oh?”

She nodded. “I’ve had dreams about you,” she confessed.

The result of the DNA test she’d had run with samples from both of them had been a relief for a multitude of reasons, this one not least of all.

“Oh,” he repeated, breathless with wonder.

The hand that wasn’t holding her slid around her waist. He pushed her down the bed gently, his larger body looming over her. He looked into her eyes and smiled, slowly, until his smile grew so wide he had to hide it in her shoulder.

“Liz,” he breathed against her skin.

She ran her hand through his hair and brought his mouth to hers.

“Make love to me Red,” she asked. He nodded and kiss her again.

They made quick work of his remaining clothes. He was already hard and slid inside her in one smooth movement that took them both by surprise. They remained still for a second, foreheads pressed together, before Red rolled his hips and Liz felt her grip on reality slip.

Her head fell backwards as she mirrored his rhythm. She felt his fingers dig in her hips, raising her body from the bed to allow him deeper and deeper inside of her. With every thrust of his hips, her mind blanked, mouth opened on a cry that refused to come out.

The sheets rustled around them, the slick pounding of their bodies loud in the silent air. At last, something broke inside of Liz like a dam and she felt a great flood of sensation wash over her. She came with a startled cry that sounded like his name, inner walls tightening around him. His hips stilled as he followed and he held her tight to his chest, fingers digging in her back as if their bodies could merge into one.

Neither moved for a long while after that.

Red’s head rested on the crook of her shoulder. Liz brought up a hand to stroke his hair, laying the other on his back to keep him from taking his weight off her.

She never wanted to get up again.

At last he moved aside, and Liz realized that needed the bathroom rather urgently. She quickly emptied her bladder, washed her hands and ran a wet washcloth over herself, before returning to the bed.

Red was laying on one side, looking at the ceiling. Not in the mood for this newly discovered self-doubt, Liz walked over to the bed, stepped on his until she had reached him, and straddled in hips before he had time to react. She felt his hands fly to her hips on instinct, and under her, his cock gave a valiant twitch that reverberated in her core. She allowed the wave of pleasure to run through her but didn’t pursue it, sated for now.

Instead, she bent forward to kiss Red firmly on the lips, and then dropped her head to his chest. She reached out a hand and pressed the wonderful new button that commanded the electrical blinds. In the dark, she felt more than saw him smile above her. Within minutes, she was asleep, safe against his chest.

Some indeterminate time later, he stirred under her and she moved to the side, keeping her arms around him even in sleep. They awoke tangled in one another, just moments before dawn. She punched the button again and watched as the dark gave way to midnight blue.

In the low light, he watched her.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

His voice was rough with sleep. She couldn’t tell if he was asking after her health, her appetite, or her regrets.

“I feel fine,” she answered, which was true and covered all three possibilities. She turned to look at the clock.

“It’s been over twelve hours,” he answered before she could calculate.

“And what twelve hours they’ve been.”

Her humour seemed at last to break through to him. She snuggled up to his chest and breathed him in.

“Are you sure you don-”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“But I could do with a shower.”

He hummed in agreement and they rose from the bed. In the bathroom was a different story. Under the harsh neon light, they saw themselves, naked, together, reflected in the floor to ceiling mirror that covered an entire wall of the room. There was no hiding, no playing up appearances in the forgiving darkness or blurring things under the haze of lust. They looked at themselves and at each other in turn, before looking at the both of them together and turning away from the mirror of common accord.

When Lizzie glanced back at their reflection, she saw a glimpse of his scars. She gasped before she could stop herself. Red turned his face aside, keeping his back from view. It wasn’t the first time Liz had seen them, but this was never easy for him, she knew it.

“Red,” she called.

He turned back to her, eyes shaded and distant.

“I love you.”

Her tone had been as simple and clear as her words. She couldn’t deny the truth any further. This man had turned her life upside down and hurt her more than anyone ever had, but he had done it to free her from the lies she had been hiding under. He had saved her, this time from the fire, and many more times since then. He had given himself to her entirely.

She loved him. She saw the truth of it echo on his face, first in the denial that painted his features with a heavy frown, then in the tightening of his lips as he assessed the situation, then in his eyes. His eyes that suddenly looked young again, full of a hope he had forgotten. They glowed with it, glowed with unshed tears, until he grabbed her arm and drew her to him, holding her tight against him. Liz felt his tears drop on her shoulder, hot and wet.

“I love you,” she repeated, stroking his hair gently. “No toxin involved,” she joked.

He groaned against her shoulder and rose to face her, face pinched in loving exasperation, before his lips crashed against hers. He backed her into the shower stall, letting her fumble with the knob while he dropped kisses on her neck, her shoulder, her breasts. At last, hot water flowed. Red grabbed her waist and pressed her against the glass wall.

Liz was hit with a sudden vision of the pod. This was enough to resuscitate the fire in her core and she reached between their bodies to stroke him.

“Turn around,” he ordered again. Past and present mixed in Liz’s mind and she obeyed just as she had before, feeling his strong arms embrace her from behind.

He angled himself right and pushed into her, pinning her to the wall. Liz’s moans were swallowed by the rush of water. Red held her hips with one hand, reaching around her to stroke her clit with slow motions.

Liz couldn’t feel her legs after she came, and she wasn’t sure what was to blame, the hot water, the exhaustion, or Red himself.

They managed to wash, even if quickly, so as not to completely defeat the purpose of their shower, and stepped out into the vapor-filled air of the bathroom. Liz found him a clean towel, dried herself, and went over to the bed. She fell face first on the sheets and watched out of the corner of her eye as Red made him way to the other side. As soon as he had lain on the bed, he opened his arms and she wormed her way into his embrace. He kissed her hair once and before either of them knew it, sleep overtook them.

There would be plenty of time for mind games and bloodbaths in the morning. Red was right. One crisis at a time was the trick.

**Author's Note:**

> Do as Elizabeth does, girls, and always remember to pee after sex, unless you fancy getting a UTI. 
> 
> Also, I wrote this in a single night and it's 5am atm so let me know if there are any (too many) typos?


End file.
